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Germany’s financial supervisor BaFin suspects the operator of the website tfimarkets24.com of offering consumers financial and investment services without the required authorisation. The operator does not have authorisation under the German Banking Act (Kreditwesengesetz – KWG) or the German Investment Firm Act (Wertpapierinstitutsgesetz – WpIG) to offer these services. Moreover, the offeror contacts investors and leads them to believe that they could buy shares in Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche Aktiengesellschaft (“Porsche AG”) via this company. This is not the case. TFI Markets Ltd (27 Pindarou, 1060 Nicosia, Cyprus) is not responsible for the website stated above or for the aforementioned offer to buy shares. This is a case of identity theft.
There has recently been an increase in reports of attempted fraud where shares in well-known companies are offered for subscription. However, these shares are not delivered to the clients after payment is made, and the offerors can no longer be reached; in some cases, the offered shares do not even exist.
BaFin, the German Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt – BKA) and the German state criminal police offices (Landeskriminalämter) recommend that consumers seeking to invest money online should exercise the utmost caution and do the necessary research beforehand in order to identify fraud attempts at an early stage.
Background information: unless an exemption from the prospectus requirement applies, securities may be offered to the public in Germany only if a prospectus approved by BaFin in advance has been published. During the approval process, BaFin checks whether the minimum information required by law is included in the prospectus and whether its content is understandable, coherent and consistent. However, BaFin does not check whether the information contained in the prospectus is correct. Moreover, it does not check whether the issuer is reliable nor does it examine the product in question.
No securities prospectus in connection with shares in Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche Aktiengesellschaft (“Porsche AG”) has been submitted to BaFin for approval. You can check whether an approved prospectus for an offer of securities to the public has been filed with BaFin by viewing the database Prospectuses filed on the BaFin website.
Companies that offer financial or investment services in Germany require authorisation from BaFin under the KWG and/or the WpIG to provide these service. However, some companies offer these services without the necessary authorisation. Information on whether a particular company has been authorised by BaFin can be found in BaFin’s database of companies.
The information provided by BaFin is based on section 37 (4) of the KWG.
